Sameena Mulla
Biographic Data
| ID | 87428 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sameena Mulla |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sameena |
| FAMILY NAME | Mulla |
| SIGNATURE | MULLA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Marquette University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5880-5771 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 66 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 26 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The politics of evidence making
What is evidence, and how is it constituted across different scientific, legal, political and social domains? Courts, medical clinics, scientific enterprises, public constituencies, as well as academic journals, come to define, adjudicate, and thus constitute evidence through a variety of openly and covertly political processes, as Sameena Mulla and Courtney Addison discuss. Reflecting on fieldwork they have conducted on a range of topics—includi…
Against the Carceral Archive
Anthropology of Gender-Based Violence
The organization of gender-based violence by the urgent need for intervention results in an emphasis on binaries, namely a distinction between domestic violence and sexual assault. It also produces an ethnographic landscape that focuses on the institutions associated with intervention, primarily the courts and clinics whose policies are framed by these binaries. The anthropology of gender-based violence trades in the binary categories of interven…
The Condemnation of Black Motherwork
This essay argues that maternal condemnation is a key technique of carceral disciplining in sexual assault sentencing hearings in the United States. The frequency, arbitrariness, and intensity of such condemnation demonstrates Black women's susceptibility to public critique, even when they are not at the center of projects of carceral discipline. By engaging the concept of Black anti-bodies, the essay shows how carceral institutions extend a logi…
Evaluating care
This article considers how care emerges as an integrated phenomenon that enfolds defendants, victim‐witnesses, and their kin in complex ways. Care capacitates forms of racial sorting and resource allocations that manifest within sentencing hearings of persons found guilty of committing sexual offenses, a mode of dysselection as described by Sylvia Wynter. During sentencing hearings, the state asserts its authority to evaluate the inadequacies of …
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality
The tense but enduring engagement between anthropology and gender and sexuality studies has had profound effects upon anthropological theory and practice. Bringing together contributions from an international team of authors, this Handbook shows that anthropological work has taken inspiration from feminist and LGBTQI movements to create a transformative body of research. It provides an accessible, state-of-the-art overview of the anthropology of …
Beyond Rape Culture? Toward A Theory of the Work of Rape
The popular and scholarly insistence that rape and sexual assault operate in the realm of the unspeakable has no doubt contributed to the impoverishment of feminist theory on these subjects (Mardorossian 2002). Rana M. Jaleel's The Work of Rape fractures these silences by boldly confronting the ways in which we have become accustomed to thinking about rape. To rethink well-worn theoretical tropes requires an undisciplining of the subject of study…
The Unbearable Whiteness of Citational Practice in US Medical Anthropology
In this article, we examine the citational practices of US medical anthropology and seek to decenter Western-centric theory to minimize its theoretical dominance in the field. We call for a robust engagement with a broader variety of texts, genres of evidence, methodologies, and interdisciplinary forms of expertise and epistemology in response to the unbearable whiteness of the citational practices we critique. The practices are unbearable in tha…
Editors’ Welcome
Editors’ Welcome
Editors' Welcome
The Violence of Care
"Every year in the U.S., thousands of women and hundreds of men participate in sexual assault forensic examinations. Drawing on four years of participatory research in a Baltimore emergency room, Sameena Mulla reveals the realities of sexual assault response in the forensic age. Taking an approach developed at the intersection of medical and legal anthropology, she analyzes the ways in which nurses work to collect and preserve evidence while addr…
In conversation with Fatimah Jackson
As an important voice in genetic and molecular anthropology, Fatimah Jackson has challenged race science and modeled ethical, methodological, and analytical responsibility in relation to the role of race and exclusion in anthropology. She has published innovative research on ecology, plant–human–animal interactions, health, and disease, particularly in her commitment to studying malaria and its abatement. In this conversation, Jackson shares her …
Editors' Welcome
Editors' Welcome
Sexual Violence in the Clinics and the Courts
That's How She Talks
This ethnographic study of criminal sexual assault adjudication shows how prosecutors, defense attorneys, and witnesses animate text message evidence. In contrast to other forms of courtroom testimony, text messages function as multiauthored representations of recorded correspondence in the past. Attorneys and witnesses animate texts authored by or said to characterize persons represented at trial. By whom and how the texts are animated shapes tr…
Intersectionality and Credibility in Child Sexual Assault Trials
Children remain largely absent from sociolegal scholarship on sexual violence. Taking an intersectional approach to the analysis of attorneys' strategies during child sexual assault trials, this article argues that legal narratives draw on existing gender, racial, and age stereotypes to present legally compelling evidence of credibility. This work builds on Crenshaw's focus on women of color, emphasizing the role of structures of power and inequa…
Gendered Violence and the Ethics of Social Science Research
The issue of ethical conduct in research settings is important and complex. As tenure-track researchers who study gendered violence, we found Clark and Walker’s discussion provocative, thoughtful, and interesting. They urge researchers to attend both to the structural dynamics of research carried out under the pressures of tenure and promotion while advocating an ethical frame that draws attention to the limited definition of risk or harm that an…
Introduction to Forging Family
Rape
Facing Victims
This article analyzes a particular legal-medical artifact: the photos of wounds and injuries collected by forensic nurses who work with sexual assault victim-patients. I show how forensic expertise draws on multiple medical practices and adapts these practices with the goal of preserving the integrity of the evidence collection processes. In particular, forensic nurse examiners practice a rigid regime of draping and avoiding the victim-patient's …
In Mother’s Lap
In this article, I examine the documentary practices of forensic intervention into sexual assault as they reveal a larger set of imaginaries about kinship, gender, violence and healing. In the course of the forensic encounter, sexual assault victims frequently disclose victimization by intimates or relatives. The reading practices and audit mechanisms to which forensic documents are subjected reveal tensions between the real-life experiences of s…
Political Terrains of Emergency Contraception
Compelling Intimacies
This introduction highlights what we call “Compelling Intimacies”—the multiple desires, affects, and affinities that arise at the intersection of institutions, actors, technologies, and ethical discourses to exert persuasive pressures on subjects. Each article animates different facets of the intensities born of intimacy as they operate across social and relational fields. The authors separate agency from intention in their efforts to identify th…
The Violence of Care
"Every year in the U.S., thousands of women and hundreds of men participate in sexual assault forensic examinations. Drawing on four years of participatory research in a Baltimore emergency room, Sameena Mulla reveals the realities of sexual assault response in the forensic age. Taking an approach developed at the intersection of medical and legal anthropology, she analyzes the ways in which nurses work to collect and preserve evidence while addr…
Intersectionality and Credibility in Child Sexual Assault Trials
Children remain largely absent from sociolegal scholarship on sexual violence. Taking an intersectional approach to the analysis of attorneys' strategies during child sexual assault trials, this article argues that legal narratives draw on existing gender, racial, and age stereotypes to present legally compelling evidence of credibility. This work builds on Crenshaw's focus on women of color, emphasizing the role of structures of power and inequa…
The Unbearable Whiteness of Citational Practice in US Medical Anthropology
In this article, we examine the citational practices of US medical anthropology and seek to decenter Western-centric theory to minimize its theoretical dominance in the field. We call for a robust engagement with a broader variety of texts, genres of evidence, methodologies, and interdisciplinary forms of expertise and epistemology in response to the unbearable whiteness of the citational practices we critique. The practices are unbearable in tha…
In Mother’s Lap
In this article, I examine the documentary practices of forensic intervention into sexual assault as they reveal a larger set of imaginaries about kinship, gender, violence and healing. In the course of the forensic encounter, sexual assault victims frequently disclose victimization by intimates or relatives. The reading practices and audit mechanisms to which forensic documents are subjected reveal tensions between the real-life experiences of s…
That's How She Talks
This ethnographic study of criminal sexual assault adjudication shows how prosecutors, defense attorneys, and witnesses animate text message evidence. In contrast to other forms of courtroom testimony, text messages function as multiauthored representations of recorded correspondence in the past. Attorneys and witnesses animate texts authored by or said to characterize persons represented at trial. By whom and how the texts are animated shapes tr…
Facing Victims
This article analyzes a particular legal-medical artifact: the photos of wounds and injuries collected by forensic nurses who work with sexual assault victim-patients. I show how forensic expertise draws on multiple medical practices and adapts these practices with the goal of preserving the integrity of the evidence collection processes. In particular, forensic nurse examiners practice a rigid regime of draping and avoiding the victim-patient's …
There is No Place Like Home
“The body is the scene of the crime,” is an oft-repeated phrase among nurses conducting sexual assault forensic examinations. This instruction reminds nurses that the object under scrutiny, the sexually violated body, is the location and source of establishing legal evidence. The nurses' interest lies in recovering evidentiary materials towards deriving a future juridical truth and providing a means for remedy or restitution. The constitution of …
Compelling Intimacies
This introduction highlights what we call “Compelling Intimacies”—the multiple desires, affects, and affinities that arise at the intersection of institutions, actors, technologies, and ethical discourses to exert persuasive pressures on subjects. Each article animates different facets of the intensities born of intimacy as they operate across social and relational fields. The authors separate agency from intention in their efforts to identify th…
Anthropology of Gender-Based Violence
The organization of gender-based violence by the urgent need for intervention results in an emphasis on binaries, namely a distinction between domestic violence and sexual assault. It also produces an ethnographic landscape that focuses on the institutions associated with intervention, primarily the courts and clinics whose policies are framed by these binaries. The anthropology of gender-based violence trades in the binary categories of interven…
Sexual Violence in the Clinics and the Courts
Introduction to Forging Family
Compelling Intimacies
This introduction highlights what we call “Compelling Intimacies”—the multiple desires, affects, and affinities that arise at the intersection of institutions, actors, technologies, and ethical discourses to exert persuasive pressures on subjects. Each article animates different facets of the intensities born of intimacy as they operate across social and relational fields. The authors separate agency from intention in their efforts to identify th…
There is No Place Like Home
“The body is the scene of the crime,” is an oft-repeated phrase among nurses conducting sexual assault forensic examinations. This instruction reminds nurses that the object under scrutiny, the sexually violated body, is the location and source of establishing legal evidence. The nurses' interest lies in recovering evidentiary materials towards deriving a future juridical truth and providing a means for remedy or restitution. The constitution of …
Political Terrains of Emergency Contraception
In Mother’s Lap
In this article, I examine the documentary practices of forensic intervention into sexual assault as they reveal a larger set of imaginaries about kinship, gender, violence and healing. In the course of the forensic encounter, sexual assault victims frequently disclose victimization by intimates or relatives. The reading practices and audit mechanisms to which forensic documents are subjected reveal tensions between the real-life experiences of s…
Gendered Violence and the Ethics of Social Science Research
The issue of ethical conduct in research settings is important and complex. As tenure-track researchers who study gendered violence, we found Clark and Walker’s discussion provocative, thoughtful, and interesting. They urge researchers to attend both to the structural dynamics of research carried out under the pressures of tenure and promotion while advocating an ethical frame that draws attention to the limited definition of risk or harm that an…
Introduction to Forging Family
Rape
Facing Victims
This article analyzes a particular legal-medical artifact: the photos of wounds and injuries collected by forensic nurses who work with sexual assault victim-patients. I show how forensic expertise draws on multiple medical practices and adapts these practices with the goal of preserving the integrity of the evidence collection processes. In particular, forensic nurse examiners practice a rigid regime of draping and avoiding the victim-patient's …
Intersectionality and Credibility in Child Sexual Assault Trials
Children remain largely absent from sociolegal scholarship on sexual violence. Taking an intersectional approach to the analysis of attorneys' strategies during child sexual assault trials, this article argues that legal narratives draw on existing gender, racial, and age stereotypes to present legally compelling evidence of credibility. This work builds on Crenshaw's focus on women of color, emphasizing the role of structures of power and inequa…
Sexual Violence in the Clinics and the Courts
That's How She Talks
This ethnographic study of criminal sexual assault adjudication shows how prosecutors, defense attorneys, and witnesses animate text message evidence. In contrast to other forms of courtroom testimony, text messages function as multiauthored representations of recorded correspondence in the past. Attorneys and witnesses animate texts authored by or said to characterize persons represented at trial. By whom and how the texts are animated shapes tr…
The Violence of Care
"Every year in the U.S., thousands of women and hundreds of men participate in sexual assault forensic examinations. Drawing on four years of participatory research in a Baltimore emergency room, Sameena Mulla reveals the realities of sexual assault response in the forensic age. Taking an approach developed at the intersection of medical and legal anthropology, she analyzes the ways in which nurses work to collect and preserve evidence while addr…
In conversation with Fatimah Jackson
As an important voice in genetic and molecular anthropology, Fatimah Jackson has challenged race science and modeled ethical, methodological, and analytical responsibility in relation to the role of race and exclusion in anthropology. She has published innovative research on ecology, plant–human–animal interactions, health, and disease, particularly in her commitment to studying malaria and its abatement. In this conversation, Jackson shares her …
Editors' Welcome
Editors' Welcome
Editors’ Welcome
Editors' Welcome
Editors’ Welcome
The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality
The tense but enduring engagement between anthropology and gender and sexuality studies has had profound effects upon anthropological theory and practice. Bringing together contributions from an international team of authors, this Handbook shows that anthropological work has taken inspiration from feminist and LGBTQI movements to create a transformative body of research. It provides an accessible, state-of-the-art overview of the anthropology of …
Beyond Rape Culture? Toward A Theory of the Work of Rape
The popular and scholarly insistence that rape and sexual assault operate in the realm of the unspeakable has no doubt contributed to the impoverishment of feminist theory on these subjects (Mardorossian 2002). Rana M. Jaleel's The Work of Rape fractures these silences by boldly confronting the ways in which we have become accustomed to thinking about rape. To rethink well-worn theoretical tropes requires an undisciplining of the subject of study…
The Unbearable Whiteness of Citational Practice in US Medical Anthropology
In this article, we examine the citational practices of US medical anthropology and seek to decenter Western-centric theory to minimize its theoretical dominance in the field. We call for a robust engagement with a broader variety of texts, genres of evidence, methodologies, and interdisciplinary forms of expertise and epistemology in response to the unbearable whiteness of the citational practices we critique. The practices are unbearable in tha…
Evaluating care
This article considers how care emerges as an integrated phenomenon that enfolds defendants, victim‐witnesses, and their kin in complex ways. Care capacitates forms of racial sorting and resource allocations that manifest within sentencing hearings of persons found guilty of committing sexual offenses, a mode of dysselection as described by Sylvia Wynter. During sentencing hearings, the state asserts its authority to evaluate the inadequacies of …
Anthropology of Gender-Based Violence
The organization of gender-based violence by the urgent need for intervention results in an emphasis on binaries, namely a distinction between domestic violence and sexual assault. It also produces an ethnographic landscape that focuses on the institutions associated with intervention, primarily the courts and clinics whose policies are framed by these binaries. The anthropology of gender-based violence trades in the binary categories of interven…
The Condemnation of Black Motherwork
This essay argues that maternal condemnation is a key technique of carceral disciplining in sexual assault sentencing hearings in the United States. The frequency, arbitrariness, and intensity of such condemnation demonstrates Black women's susceptibility to public critique, even when they are not at the center of projects of carceral discipline. By engaging the concept of Black anti-bodies, the essay shows how carceral institutions extend a logi…
The politics of evidence making
What is evidence, and how is it constituted across different scientific, legal, political and social domains? Courts, medical clinics, scientific enterprises, public constituencies, as well as academic journals, come to define, adjudicate, and thus constitute evidence through a variety of openly and covertly political processes, as Sameena Mulla and Courtney Addison discuss. Reflecting on fieldwork they have conducted on a range of topics—includi…
Sociology (14 works) · Law (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Citation (6 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (6 works) · Library science (6 works)